aRdent Voice

Normally I’m not a big fan of earmarking little slices of the government revenue stream to only a single purpose or agency. Times change and priorities can change as well. However,  I’m beginning to think that it would be a good idea for Police and Fire funding – but only if EVERYONE has to pay for it. That means every entity that resides or operates in Tulsa and receives a utility bill for water, sewer, etc., regardless of their tax status. Whether or not an organization or individual is a church, private educational institution, ministry  or other non-profit, has no bearing on their benefit from Police and Fire service.

With a dedicated source of revenue that is not nearly as unstable as sales tax, the budgets for Police and Fire could be set and held for longer terms. This would also put limits on contracts with unions. When it is clear that there is only a certain amount of money on the table, then the parties involved will have to figure out a way to live with it, like the rest of us. This would prevent future mayors from agreeing to contract terms that cannot be fulfilled and also reign in union demands when there is only a fixed pot of money to work with.

This is not the first time I have sorely missed the commission form of government in Tulsa. At least then there was accountability to the voters for action and inaction of the major city services of Police/Fire, Streets and Water/Sewer. Now it seems that no one at city hall can be held responsible for anything, but they can sure study it and add more staff and look into ways to blame it on a councilor or the mayor or the union.

Headed by President Hamid Văn Thiệu Karzai, Afghanistan is not just like Vietnam, it IS Vietnam. Here we are again backing a corrupt so-called leader after the result of a highly questionable election that we would certainly condemn if it were held anywhere else. (Nguyễn Văn Thiệu got around 94% of the vote in Vietnam in 1971).

We had the opportunity to grab Bin Laden and the key Al Qaeda people in the earliest days and lost the opportunity by a combination of indecision and the faulty belief of a few that smart-bombs, UAVs and Black Ops forces could replace regiments if not divisions in a sparsely populated, mountainous land.
Another 100,000 troops, even if they were all shooters, will not bring back the opportunity that was lost years ago.

The political leadership, past and now current, can not or will not even tell us what success would look like in Afghanistan because they want to be able to change the definition as they go.  Do you really think our fathers, uncles, grandfathers and such would have hit the beaches on Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Omaha or Utah if they had no idea of how success would be defined. That’s what we are asking our troops to do now. How can we look them in the eye and ask them to do this! Saying “Remember 9/11″ is only going to last a little longer. They’re going to have to start up the draft again because we have absolutely worn out all of our active duty, reserve and National Guard troops.

This is the LBJ moment. It’s sounding now that Barry is going to push ahead so as not to look weak. Yes we have lost good people there and yes their sacrifice is very much appreciated and gratefully acknowledged by this old jarhead and countless thousands of others. At this point, the best way to show that we truly support our troops is to get them out of a situation that has no end in sight, before thousands more are maimed and killed.

Can’t we be smart and retain some of the lessons of our own history. Must we continue to follow the failed steps that Britain followed in both Afghanistan and Mesopotamia. I’m not ignoring or forgetting the history of Al Qaeda or the Taliban, but continuing to send the best of our youth and literally tons of our treasure to this place that has swallowed up armies from Alexander to the Soviets is just madness and does a great disservice to those who must fight and die so politicians can say that they did not forget 9/11.

Over 50,000 of us died for the domino theory of Communism in southeast Asia. We lost a generation, nearly ruined the Army and Marine Corps as career options for patriotic Americans and thought we had forever changed how our country’s military forces would be deployed in foreign lands. How many more Americans have to be killed, maimed and forever emotionally scarred in this exercise in futility?

I did something today that I do not often do – I bought some food at a Wal-Mart. I tried to get my Thanksgiving turkey at a locally owned grocery store, but they seem to have decided that no one needed a turkey smaller than 20 pounds. Since I was out already, and really wanted to get this bird in the fridge and thawing, I went down the road a mile to a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market to check their selection of turkeys. They actually had a much wider selection of turkeys than the local grocer, and they were lower priced for the same brand, so I got a nice 12-pounder and headed for the checkout.

As is usually the case, there were two checkouts open and long lines in each, so I headed for the self-service checkout. These are often problematic, but since I only had one item it seemed fairly foolproof. The moment I scanned the turkey’s tag, I got an automated voice telling me “approval required.” Funny, the turkey did not look like spray paint or anything else I could think of that might have some purchase limitations. Usually when I get an error on these automated checkouts, I just abandon the lane and seek another or head for the human checkout. This time, there was already an employee headed toward me and the other lines were still long so I waited. The employee looked at the screen, then carefully looked at the tag on the turkey. I asked what the problen was and mentioned that the audible message had started before I could move the turkey from the scanner to the bagging area and its validation scale.She told me that they were having problem with people stealing turkeys and switching labels.

I told her that my understanding is that the bar code on the turkey contains the weight of the bird also and was surprised that it halted the transaction without waiting to check the weight. She mumbled something and began logging in to the terminal.

Since I was only buying one item, it seems pretty clear that Wal-Mart has simply decided that all turkey purchases must be scrutinized and manually verified since everyone coming in to the store is a thief unless proven otherwise. Sam’s Club has had a “prove you didn’t steal it” check at the exit door for a long time and I have grudgingly accepted it, though I still hold up my receipt and say “see I didn’t steal anything today” when I check out.

I’m sure every retailer has problems with loss control, but only a couple seem to have resorted to just assuming that everyone in the store is there to steal until proven otherwise. This is one of the results of total focus on lowest price by the consumers to the exclusion of any other factor. If this same type of behavior were done by a retailer that was not seen as lowest possible price, they would soon have no customers to worry about.

There are limits to how much customer-hostile behavior we will tolerate. We all need to make more of an effort to let the retailers know when they are pushing that limit, and also let them know when they are doing a good job. Yes, I have communicated this experience to Wal-Mart as well, . . . for all the good it will do.

Tulsa’s party-hack mayoral candidates Tom Adelson (D) and Dewey Bartlett (R) continue to set the bar lower and lower in their battle to show which one can demonstrate the least amount of leadership and poorest judgment.  I’ve been watching and sometimes participating in campaigns for a number of years now, but cannot remember  seeing one that has had so little  substance, yet been so full of mud-slinging. Neither candidate really has much political history or background despite holding minor offices, so the campaigns are harvesting every word ever spoken and driving every past vote or stance to some sort of bizarre extreme.

The latest one has Adelson’s ad showing an apparent child molester on a playground and proclaiming that Bartlett would leave your children to fall victim to these criminals. What’s next? Will Bartlett’s campaign create an ad or yet another mailer showing Adelson crushing kitten heads or feasting on dead bodies of puppies?

The one thing that is abundantly clear to me is that both of these morons (and their campaign managers) should be tarred and feathered, then run out of town on a rail. How a candidate campaigns shows their judgment and their ethics (if any) and these two idiots have shown themselves totally unqualified to run a snow-cone stand.  Plus, the incredible amounts of money that the Bozo boys are spending means that if either of these slanderers gets elected, there will be a lot of favors to return.

I didn’t find Bartlett or Adelson particularly appealing at the start of this contest – but thanks to their combined efforts I genuinely loathe them both now. You may say that this is just campaigning or that I should focus my anger and disgust on the campaign managers—but the candidates approve this crap or it would not be going out. People show you their true face when they are striving for something they desperately want.

If ever there was a time to ignore political parties and just examine the candidates, this is it. I’m trying my best to found out all I can about the independent candidate Mark Perkins.  So far I like what I see and unless he decides to get in the sewer with the other two, he will have my support and vote.

Just cannot resist the opportunity to wonder aloud who paid for the helicopter to move the Drillers home plate a handful of miles, while we are grounding the Police helicopters for lack of funds. Once again we see incredible insensitivity on the part of some. I doubt that any govt. funds paid for the silly chopper flight, at least I certainly hope not. However, you can bet that some business will charge this off as business travel or something. Once again, sports trumps everything around these parts, even good taste.

For several years now my wife Lori has been creating some wonderfully beautiful and touching artwork, primarily portraits from her home studio here in Tulsa, OK.

Cambodian Boy (From Innocents in Cambodia) © 2009 Lori Sears

Some of these are in oil, others in charcoal or conte. Recently we have created a site, lorisportraits.com, for her works. I think you will find that the pieces speak for themselves far better than words could. The pieces are of people from the past and the present.

Starting in September, T-Mobile will add a $1.50 per month charge to get paper bills, and be able to mail in payments. Of course this is all being played as “green” when we we all know it is simple greed.  Sure, it costs to print and mail invoices and to process payments that are mailed in.  That is called “cost of doing business.” Since phone companies are already well known for passing along any and every charge and fee imaginable as well as some that are hard to imagine, I guess this should not really come as a surprise. What goes along with this paperless billing is also the requirement to either pay online via credit/debit card or via electronic funds transfer from a bank or credit union account. If you insist on paying with cash, check or money order, you will have to take it to a T-Mobile store as they will not accept payments mailed in.

The galling part of this is that the only way I found out about it was by routinely checking my minutes of usage on their web site. Wonder how long I would have gone otherwise? I already know that I have to carefully dissect every piece of paper included with credit card bills to make sure one of them is not a carefully veiled notice that my interest rate is doubling next month and that I agree to accept it if I use my card even one more time. Can’t wait to see the next T-Mobile bill and see how this new green fee is communicated, if at all.

The terms that you must agree to are fun too (see below and link).  So it is now my responsibility to set a date on my calendar to check for billing, since they can’t be bothered with sending a no-charge SMS to make sure I got it. #12 is a hoot too. Sure good to know that T-Mobile’s system is right on the bleeding edge of Internet browsers. I guess I should not plan to use it with Safari or Chrome or Firefox or  even a very old version of IE6. Wonder why the iPhone went to AT&T? Guess accessing your account and paying from any mobile browser would be completely out of the question.

(Terms) By agreeing to receive my Bill electronically I agree to the following:

Paperless Billing. I may view my paperless T-Mobile Bill for wireless services (Bill) online by accessing my account at www.t-mobile.com/mytmobile. I may also determine how much I owe by dialing #BAL# on my T-Mobile phone or by calling Customer Care.
1. Payment. I will pay my Bill (including any late fees) timely, whether or not I receive a Bill notice or am able to access my paperless Bill.
2. Not receiving a Bill notice. T-Mobile will attempt to send me a Bill notice to my current e-mail address in T-Mobile’s records. It is my sole responsibility to contact T-Mobile directly if I do not receive my Bill notice. I agree to hold T-Mobile harmless for any delay or failure to deliver notice.

—snip—

12. System compatibility and blocking. The ability to receive Bill notices is system and Internet Service Provider dependent. To accurately view your paperless Bill, your system must be running either Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, Netscape Navigator 6.1 or higher, or AOL 5.0 or higher. Some ISPs may block e-mail from senders who are not on a “contacts” list, so I may not receive my notification unless I specifically add T-Mobile to my contacts or “people I know.”  — (bold emphasis added by aRdent)

Even with this, T-Mobile is still cheaper for the voice service that we use, so switching to AT&T is not an option. I would not even consider changing to one of the CDMA carriers (Sprint, Verizon, US Cellular), regardless of rate difference. The CDMA system and their devices are just too limited and delicate. There are many good reasons why the rest of the world uses GSM for cellular.

The pundits and progressives are all aflutter about some recent townhall meetings with Congress members that have gotten loud and rowdy.  This should not be a real surprise as healthcare is a very personal issue—especially so if you have a chronic condition or are retired on a fixed income. Sure, some of the participants may have been seeded by those with a particular position, but many are just angry at what certainly looks like a huge change with no public debate.

First, it would help a lot if all of us could actually see and read what we are debating. I’d be very surprised if all the members of Congress have even read it all, much less understand it.  With all the communications outlets currently available to the Congress and the Administration, there is no reason why the people should not be completely informed on the proposed package so we are not running scared with rumors of death boards. Yes, I know we can read the whole thing online, but can most of us make any sense of it?

This is a very serious subject which directly affects people’s lives. Broad outlines from the Administration and a few members of Congress from each side of the aisle does not constitute a debate.  Likewise, one speaker making statements and answering questions in a room full of constituents is not a debate either.

In the absence of clear, concise information about exactly what is changing and what is will cost us all, it is not surprising that many will react with fear. Add to this the number of people, both broadcasters and politicos that know that nothing motivates people to action better than fear and you have a formula for emotional reactions and outrage. The liberals are outraged that the masses would dare question the wisdom or motives of the progressive elite who always know what’s best for us and the conservatives are outraged that there is not a lot they can do to stop this train regardless of where it is currently headed.

Many of us have personal experience with finding out after the fact that a nameless, faceless entity has determined that something  is “not a covered expense” or  “not medically necessary, ” but we have to pay for it anyway. Therefore it is not surprising that people are reluctant to trust what sounds like another group of insurance salesmen telling us not to worry.

It’s real simple. If you don’t want us screaming about the latest rumor we’ve heard, replace those rumors with detailed, accurate information, not broad gentle reassurances. Tell us what exactly this bill is trying to accomplish and how a given section or subtitle accomplishes that.

Congress and the Administration need to spend the next month or two putting out detailed accurate information and give people a chance to digest it. Then, go back and make the changes that this discussion has shown are needed and put it to a vote of both houses. Let’s get this decided on its merits, not on who is best at stampeding their followers.

We finally decided that the time has come to stop paying $17 a month to have the dead-tree version of the local rag deposited on the driveway. The World has long ago ceased being a newspaper.  I will not miss the front page evergreen stories, the full-page snake oil ads, the bizarre editorial positions or the constant drum-beating to spend any amount of tax money to construct some sort of downtown that only exists in the editorial board and publisher’s  fantasies.

What really pushed us over the edge was noticing how many times they kept jumping stories to the website.  There is plenty of room in the paper for a page dedicated to a brand of Bourbon from years past,  and clearly no shortage of space to plug the current touring musicals, but they cannot seem to make space for actual news any more. Today’s top local story is that people apparently get hot and drink lots of water when it is 100 degrees outside. Wow, shouldn’t that be tagged “Breaking News?”

One would hope that the local paper would be the place to find out about local events. Apparently only those events sponsored by the World or favored by Wayne Greene  merit a mention. Don’t even get me started on Mike Jones’ constant stream of liberal hate-speech for any knuckle-dragger that does not share his clearly superior positions. The World’s editorials frequently remind me that no group has a monopoly on intolerance and that nothing is apparently as vitally important as puppies.

Newspapers across the country are fighting a losing battle to stay relevant and stay in business. The problem is that for too many of them the business plan seems to be to do less and charge more, then wail about the Internet while giving away the precious little original content they still generate on the Internet. Thankfully there are still a few newspapers that understand that their strength lies in digging out and presenting stories, both news and investigative, not just adding their “coverage” to a story we have already heard.

I never really liked the Tulsa World, but as a former print photojournalist I still wanted my daily “fix.”  The Tribune always had much better layout, better use of visuals and frankly better writers and editors, but afternoon papers were the first to go in this Darwinian process. I can read many of the best papers online; some for free and some for a very reasonable access fee.

I’m more than willing to pay for quality content. I do not give my work away for free and do not expect anyone else to.  However, I ‘m no longer going to pay $17 a month for shipping and handling of a daily shopper.  The paper kept telling us to go to their website—so we will.

First of all, my solution for “reform” or actually trust-busting of healthcare for small businesses, self-employed and individuals does not involve tax money, subsidies, or much of anything else from government except mandating some rule changes. Most of these will be at the state level, though it would be necessary to make a small change in HIPAA at the Fed level.

The biggest single problem for all of us “little guys” (small businesses, self-employed and individuals) is the high cost to get into or maintain health insurance coverage, if we can get it at all. This is primarily because the insurance companies and groups, whether private for-profit or run by local or regional non-profit hospital groups, insist on dealing with small entities on a group-by-group basis. This means that a business with 10 employees that includes two or three with chronic conditions or a complicated pregnancy is going to pay a fortune in premiums.

In many cases, the employer simply cannot afford to include enough of the premium in their benefits to have anything left over to actually pay the employees. Since some employees may be able to get coverage through their spouse, the employer may be able to simply not offer healthcare and still attract enough workers. Nonetheless, many small businesses would like to be able to offer coverage to attract a larger pool of workers and perhaps to have group coverage for themselves as well.

This gets really tough if you are self-employed. Unless you are married with a spouse that has good coverage at their job, about the only option is an individual policy. Individual policies are not only very expensive, they also do not have to accept your pre-existing condition the way a group does under HIPAA.

It would seem that the obvious thing to do would be to organize some sort of group that various small businesses and self-employed people could join or affiliate  with so that the insurance companies had to deal with them as a group of say 500 people, rather than many small groups and individuals.  There would be one administrator for the insurance company to deal with and the risk would be spread out over a larger group, so that 2 or 3 people with chronic conditions no longer represented 25% of the group. This affiliation would also be a group under HIPAA, so those in it would have complete portability of their coverage from employer to employer, or  from employer to consultant/contractor.

Anyway, this grouping of lots of small businesses, self-employeds and free-lancers to get affordable health coverage sounds like a great idea, right? Not if you are an insurance company. This sounds like something that has to be prevented,  and that is exactly what has happened. Although it is possible to put together a group and negotiate with perhaps one carrier to give your group coverage based on some sort of membership or professional commonality, it is next to impossible to just get together a mixed bag of several dozen small businesses and free-lancers and define it as a group, then get coverage quotes and let your members make an annual choice on which of several competing levels of coverage they want. Why? Because it is highly profitable for insurers to demand that each employer be defined as a group and make the free-lancer/self-employed apply as individuals. This is especially profitable for them when dealing with self-employed people who usually have to buy individual policies because the insurer can exclude pre-existing conditions. If this were a group plan, the HIPAA rules would not allow them to exclude pre-existing conditions.

As more and more of us become free-lancers, consultants, self-employed, this is becoming a bigger and bigger issue and becoming more and more profitable for the insurers.

What needs to happen here is legislation to force the insurers to deal with independent groups on the same basis as large employers including full portability of coverage. If you have a group of 500 people, it really doesn’t matter whether you all work for the same firm or not as far as your likelihood of illness/disease is concerned, so why are the insurers able to insist that it does?

This is NOT a case of government meddling in private business. Ask anyone that knows me, I’m a raving Libertarian. What this is is getting both state and federal governments to STOP allowing the insurers to cherry-pick the group size and composition they choose to deal with and actually restore free enterprise.

Free enterprise is a wonderful thing when it actually is free. When it uses government to grant monopolies or let it play by “special rules” that no other business gets to play by, it is no longer free enterprise. This is the root problem of our health no-care system now. The insurers, drug-peddlers and various other health-industry lobbyists have so gummed up the works with “special rules” that is has no resemblance whatsoever to free enterprise.

The Democrat solution is take money from some to pay for the rest and the Republican solution is to keep telling us that the Democrats are trying to socialize healthcare, and preaching  status quo ante. Meanwhile both sides continue to rake in campaign cash from the healthcare industry and enjoy a gold-plated benefit plan that we are all paying for.

If small entities and the self-employed could get affordable coverage through groups or co-ops, the numbers of uninsured and underinsured would drop appreciably, without any tax money! Let’s try this before we throw out more $Billions.